The Child’s Whole Play Experience, Organising for Play, Play
at School.

My take-away: Children Play all day, even if adults do not
recognise it as such. They play when they wake, at mealtime, wearing clothes,
in the car, in the bath, etc.

I quite like Table 12.1 on page 229. In summary: Aborigine
support as needed vs Japanese interdependence vs Western promote autonomy.

Organising for Play variations. Of the five different styles
or programmes, these are 3 the ones which resonate with me.

Work then Play – it’s the approach I learned,
and still practice.

Project Approach – Play is used to support adult-selected
learning outcomes. Children control the content of the play.

Reggio Emilia – in this peer-control style,
children have the control of their long-term projects and the adults support
these for as long as the interest holds, e.g. displaying the children’s work,
extend beyond their everyday experiences, facilitating the ‘shared wisdom’ of
the group. I wish I could do this, but it reads like a lot of work for the
adults.

With regards to Play at School, this excerpt (p 276) is a
good simile as to how it is in New Zealand these days I reckon.

We Can’t Do That

Amy and Eliza are both aged 8.
They say, ‘We don’t do skipping, ‘cause we don’t have stuff we can use. And
there’s no place you can go to do that. There’s no skipping and no elastics.
Sometimes we’re allowed to keep out the big rope after fitness, and people get
in the middle and we play with it. But then someone says there’re note going to
play or they’re not their friend, and we can’t play.’

Terry (aged 8) reports: ‘We can’t
play football, ‘cause there’s no grass. And we can’t play on the asphalt ‘cause
it’s hard and we might fall over. We can’t play marbles ‘cause there’s nowhere
flat. [At my last school] we used to play it where there was just a little hole
and little bit [of ground] where we could play marbles.’

(Dockett, 1997)

With regards to bullying at school:

Sam (aged 9): This kid came and
punched Brett up a bit, but said Brett had started it. But this other kid was
heaps bigger than Brett, he was just huge! All night he [the other child] was
punching himself so he had a big bruise and so he could say Brett punched him
first.

(Dockett, 1997)

Friends are incredibly important. Friendship interactions
helps the ability to read a social situation, and develop a representational
theory of mind and the ability to consider the perspectives of others.

“Having friends enables the
practice and refinement of social skills such as group entry and negotiation.”
(p282)